FANVIEW

“Will you help him change the world? Can you dig it? Yes, I can and I’ve been waiting such a long time.”—Chicago

I’ve been at my current church for 13 years.

The first Super Bowl party at my church was so long ago that the St. Louis Rams were actually playing in that Super Bowl…Of course the New England Patriots cheated, but that’s another column.

I was at my church when 911 happened.

For years we did Monday night football in the fellowship hall and then later in the homes of different families around the church.

For birthday parties and going away parties, I slipped away with the men in my church to watch football in the other room while all the activities were going on.

I’ve seen a lot…we’ve had discussions about college basketball, North Carolina, hockey, NASCAR (sucks what?)…baseball and football.

But I’m always accused, and I guess rightly so, of being the sports guy. The one that loves to watch sports, the one who loves to talk sports, the one who always injects a sports illustration into a sermon.

But the part that has bugged me about this, is that everyone else has always acted like they were above these things.

“Oh no,” they say. “”I don’t really care, makes no difference to me.”

Recently as I was sitting down at a board meeting I asked Don, who is 79, if he saw the Dodger game the night before. The one where Andre Ethier hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game and Yasiel Puig turned a single up the middle into a double and eventual winning run.

“I was listening to it and then it got late and I had to get some things done,” he said.

I said; “Oh, did you turn down the sound and listen to Vin Scully over the radio?”

“No, I listened to it on the radio,” Don said. “I have Time Warner.”

Which meant he didn’t have the Dodger game on KCAL because of the recent dispute.

What I took from it was, Don was getting stuff done and turned on the radio to catch some of the game. No big deal.

Then on Sunday I asked him if he had been following the Dodgers this week.

“Oh yeah,” he said. Then he put his fist up and said; “I think this is their year!”

Do 79 year olds get that worked up about the Dodgers? I couldn’t believe it…I’m immature, I’m all caught up in it…no one else could possibly be like me…Like you…like us…But they are.

I guess passion for something never really goes away…it just lays dormant for a while and all it takes is a great summer to make a guy 79, feel like he’s 29 again.